Islamabad(PTI): Pakistan's ousted prime minister Imran Khan has warned that the country would descend into a civil war if fresh elections were not announced.

In an interview to Bol News on Wednesday, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman said he is waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on his party's plea to provide protection to the protestors, after which he said he would issue the date for the next march demanding general elections, the Dawn newspaper reported.

"We will see if they allow us to go towards elections through legal and constitutional means otherwise this country will go towards (a) civil war," he warned.

Khan further said there was "no question" of returning to the National Assembly as that would "mean accepting the conspiracy" that had removed his government.

Khan was removed from office in April through a no-confidence vote but he refused to accept the outcome and blamed that the US was involved in toppling his government.

The PTI chairman has been protesting ever since and calling fresh elections because, in his words, the incumbent coalition government led by Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party was imported and not a true representative of the Pakistani people.

Khan led his thousands of PTI supporters to Islamabad last Wednesday in a protest and had planned to stage a sit-in until new elections were announced but abruptly called off the sit-in at the last minute after making it to the capital. However, he had threatened to return after six days if the government failed to give a date for snap polls in the country.

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Ahmedabad (PTI): The Gujarat ATS and Rajasthan Police jointly busted an illegal alprazolam-making factory in the neighbouring state and arrested three men with 22 kg of psychotropic substances and the drug, valued at Rs 30 lakh, officials said on Monday.

The accused had rented a pharmaceutical unit to manufacture the drug, prescribed for anxiety and panic disorders, in an industrial area near Bhiwadi town of Rajasthan.

Alprazolam falls under the purview of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act because of its misuse as a psychotropic substance, according to an official release.

Acting on specific inputs, personnel of Gujarat ATS and Rajasthan Police raided the unit on Sunday, leading to the arrest of Anshul Shastri, Akhilesh Maurya, and Krishnakumar Yadav.

Police recovered 5 kg of alprazolam and 17 kg of a mixture of other psychotropic substances used as raw material, taking the total seizure to 22 kg, valued at around Rs 30 lakh, said the release.

The substances were allegedly being manufactured illegally without any authorisation or licence, and were meant for sale in the illicit drug market.

A preliminary investigation suggested that one of the arrested accused, Shastri, was involved in sourcing raw materials required for manufacturing alprazolam through his trading firm, according to the release.

Shastri and his business partner Maurya took a pharma unit in Bhiwadi on rent with the help of Yadav, a chemist versed in the production process, it said.

Rajasthan Police registered an FIR at the Bhiwadi sector-3 police station following the raid under relevant sections of the NDPS Act and are investigating further.